Inside a Thursday at the studio: making cones

Every Thursday morning, before the studio opens, two of us make the week’s henna. It starts with Sojat henna powder, which we sift three times through a fine cotton cloth. The leaf powder that comes through is soft as talc; the stalks and grit that stay behind would clog a fine cone.

The powder is mixed with fresh lemon juice and a spoon of sugar into a thick paste, covered and left to rest in a warm corner for about 12 hours. This is when the dye releases. We test it by dabbing a little on a palm: when it leaves an orange mark in five minutes, the paste is ready. Then we loosen it with more lemon juice and a few drops of eucalyptus oil until it falls from a spoon like thick honey.

The cones themselves are cut from plastic sheet, rolled by hand and taped. A kilo of powder fills about 80 cones of 25 g. We fill them through a piping bag so there are no air bubbles, which would make the line break mid-design, then fold the ends and write the date on each.

Everything goes straight into the freezer. A cone keeps for six weeks frozen and about a week in the fridge. Anything older than that is thrown away. Natural henna loses its strength, and we would rather roll more cones than draw a bride’s hands with tired paste.